


rescue run

by ninemoons42



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Coda, Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Steve Rogers, Spoilers, Steve Rogers-centric, Team as Family, background Steve/Bucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 04:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6838447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Steve Rogers knows is that he has to rescue his friends: he can't just leave them high and dry, though he wants to stay at Bucky Barnes's side.</p><p>What Steve Rogers doesn't know is that his friends are also going to rescue him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rescue run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [johanirae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/johanirae/gifts), [kannibal (keio)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keio/gifts).



> This thing hit me out of a clear blue sky and it started with Bruce and then Wanda got rolled into it and then -- hello avalanche of feels.

He hopes he has the right coordinates: a desperate hope that beats against his ribcage, trapped beneath his heart, as he once again wrestles with the controls of a Quinjet.

A quiet Quinjet, this time. Quiet like a grave, quiet like the tidal susurrus of the storm that buffets these wild waters. The Raft is supposed to be somewhere well out of the jurisdiction of most of the world’s nations. Well out of reach, lurking, beneath foam-tipped tides and endless churning waves. 

No matter how many times Steve looks over his shoulder, there’s still no one in the jet with him: just a heap of blankets. Some hastily-procured clothes. A spot of red in that pile, a trademark red, though he’d had to guess at the size. He has no idea what might’ve happened to the woman for whom he’d bought it.

A shaky guess at the right location. He keeps his eyes pointed forward. 

(If he looks back again, he’ll turn this jet around without finishing this rescue mission, and if he does that, there’ll be one more item on the list of things he won’t forgive himself for.)

He clears his throat. He deepens his voice. He asks for permission to land.

The woman on the line hesitates. Says, “We weren’t expecting anyone.”

Movement in the waters, and Steve spares a thought for the lost fishing boat that’s about to blunder on a top-secret location -- 

The ocean churns beneath him. Lights around the rim of a vast circle. The cylindrical shape that rises out of the waves looks every inch a prison and it makes Steve’s gut roil. He’s had enough of prisons. He’s seen so many of them. World War II and then after -- 

Calm. Calm. Focus. Get the others out.

He lands the jet. Clenches his fists. Does he need the shield? No. But he does miss the weight of it in his hands, the easy returning arc of it as it flew back towards him. He only has his hands today. Hands and feet, and that should be more than enough.

“Sorry,” he says, to the wide-eyed woman with her service pistol -- he knocks her out, and looks in her pockets. He’s looking for the access codes. He needs to get to the others.

He’s clattering down a set of stairs, bracing himself for more brawling, when the entirety of the Raft shudders convulsively.

It’s not the waves. The waves wouldn’t make the Raft shimmy in that sickening way.

Ross? 

Steve grits his teeth and launches himself through a set of doors -- fists flying, and the ricochet of bullets, and it takes him minutes that he doesn’t have to take down the sentries.

The next room boasts a wall of virtual screens.

Steve’s heart sinks.

Wanda, curled up into a little ball.

Clint, pacing in the way a caged lion paces.

Sam, hands in his pockets.

Scott, restless sleeper.

He’s about to throw the switches when something directly overhead groans, when something directly overhead _roars_ \--

Adrenaline claws clench around his heart. 

But he knows that cry.

He’s heard it before.

And so Steve looks up in disbelief and says the name: “Bruce.”

He cups his hands around his mouth. Shouts toward the cracks that begin to widen in the ceiling. “Down here!”

“CAP,” bellows that voice.

Steve dives for cover beneath a console. Waits for the almighty THUMP that rattles his teeth. He puts his hands up, and stands. “I’ve never been happier to see you,” he says, to green skin and troubled eyes. “I don’t know how you got here, but thank you.”

A grin full of uneven teeth. “Smash prison.”

Steve can’t help but smile. “Just parts of it.”

He throws the release switches for four cells anyway.

“Come on,” he says, and he takes comfort in the massive impact of the Hulk’s footsteps.

Sam is already out of his cell by the time Steve reaches their holding area. Scott is awake, sitting on his cot, looking around in disbelief. Wanda looks shocked. 

Clint is the first to move, rushing past Steve to pound a fist against an oversized green shoulder. “It is damned good to see you again, big guy.”

“What the hell, Steve, how’d you even manage to track him down?” Sam asks, hooking a thumb in the Hulk’s direction. 

“I didn’t.” Steve shrugs one shoulder. He wants to fall down in relief. He still has a rescue to coordinate. “He found this place.”

“I won’t feel sorry if he decides to treat it like a chew toy.”

“Sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” Steve says, and offers Sam his hand.

“What matters is you’re here now,” is the easy reply. 

But Steve can see something haunting his eyes, and he’s about to do something about it when there’s a tug on his sleeve -- and he turns, and reflexively sheds his jacket. 

Wanda’s shoulders are frail and hunched and her eyes are too bright with tears -- but her voice is steady and her hands are warm. “Thank you.”

Steve nods, and tries to apologize to her, but she’s stepping past him. She’s moving towards the Hulk. 

“Thank you,” she says, small and trusting.

“Not enemy.” The Hulk peers at her.

“I am not your enemy,” Wanda repeats. 

“Cap friend.”

That makes her smile. “Yes. He is my friend, and yours.”

“And mine too,” Clint chimes in. “Come ’ere.”

Steve looks away from Wanda being lifted off the floor. He shrugs a shoulder at Scott. “Coming?”

“You have no idea,” is the reply. “I’m just -- shit, what now?”

“Now we get out of here,” Steve says.

“Going where? No offense, I’m super grateful we’re not caged up any more, but who’s going to help us?”

“Wakanda.”

That makes Scott blink. “No kidding?”

Steve shakes his head, solemnly.

“Oookay. Okay. Weren’t we just fighting that guy? I mean, we still got the news here, sometimes. The guy in the cat suit, literally the cat suit -- weren’t we enemies?”

Steve thinks of Bucky sealing himself up. Thinks of T’Challa’s kindness. “Not any more. He and I have been talking about things.”

He can’t really fault Scott’s dubious expression. “Whatever you say, man.”

When Steve turns around again, Wanda is offering the jacket he’d lent her to a now-shivering Bruce. 

And Steve goes and hauls Bruce to his feet, and says, “You got here just when we needed you.”

A rusty chuckle. “I’ve been wandering in that boat for a week now; I didn’t really think I was that close to the Raft till you came in.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’ve had better days,” Bruce says, and honestly, Steve can so sympathize.

“Let’s get out of here,” is all he says, however.

“Hell yeah,” Clint says, and he shoulders the rest of Bruce’s weight. Looks over his shoulder at the others. “Grab a gun or something, I don’t know.”

Steve glances in Wanda’s direction. “You good?”

She smiles, and flickers a bit of harmless red at him.

“Clothes, man, thank you,” Scott says when they’ve all piled into the Quinjet. The red dress is a little too big for Wanda, but she smooths the red lace on her sleeves anyway as she takes the co-pilot’s seat. Clint wraps Bruce in several blankets and pokes him right in the nose, and Bruce grins, faintly.

Steve gets into the pilot’s seat and looks over his shoulder at Sam. “Wakanda, you said,” Sam says.

“Just for now. I’ll see if we can find anyone who can help me get you to where you want to go.”

“Which is -- where exactly?” Sam asks. “Where you go, I go. So what if I went to prison? Still gonna be guarding your back.”

“I’ve no place to go, these days.”

“I notice you don’t even have the shield.”

“Tony has it.” Steve sighs, and hopes that his package has been received.

“We’ll worry about it another time,” and how Sam can sound so reassuring, Steve doesn’t know.

“Steve.”

He lifts off, he sets a course, and then he looks at Wanda. “Your friend?”

The question makes him sigh. He wants to take his hands off the controls. He wants to hide. “Bucky chose. He said he wanted to go into the ice again.”

She makes a sound of gentle dismay.

“He chose it,” Steve says, again. “While he’s in cryo the scientists can try to untangle the mess that HYDRA’s made of his brain, without anyone getting hurt.”

“Let me help,” Wanda says.

“I want to help, too,” Sam adds from Steve’s other side.

“I have a few suggestions as well.” Bruce in his blankets, swaying a little with the motion of the Quinjet, but there’s a steadiness in his shoulders.

“Not alone,” Wanda says. “We are here for you. And for -- Bucky. Your friend.”

Steve’s eyes are clouded. His hands are steady.

He flies the Quinjet to Wakanda.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me on tumblr at ninemoons42.tumblr.com :)


End file.
